By LOUISA CLEAVE

Samantha Janus is not concerned that she possibly ruined the dreams of Britain's adolescent males by taking a serious dramatic role in the dark police drama Liverpool 1.

She picked the character of DC Isobel de Pauli as a way to ditch her image as the fantasy girl of millions, worked up through roles such as Ruth in Babes in the Wood (repeats on TV One, Tuesdays, 10.05 pm) and good-time girl Mandy in Game On.

"I obviously had a really large following from the adolescent male types who liked Mandy and Ruth and don't really get the new character. If they honestly don't like it they'll watch re-runs of those things. I'm not really bothered about what people think."

Janus, 27, says she was concerned her quirky comedy roles misrepresent women and she wanted to return to "serious acting."

She fuelled her sexy image with statements such as rating herself 10 out of 10 in bed, but a new, serious Sam seems to have emerged.

Janus says she was offered the role after reading for the part just once. De Pauli's strength and vulnerability appealed to her.

"She's in a very strong environment, not just the male environment but the divide between north and south. She's welcomed with animosity. You see how much she gets close to things and tries to hide that because she can't be a woman and have those emotions in a job. I thought all of those things and the tension between de Pauli and her police partner Mark Callaghan was a really good package.

"You've got a responsibility to how you portray women and I don't always want to do comedy. You get older and there are different reasons as to why I act or how I take a job, not just financially but also in terms of bigger issues, like being responsible for how women are portrayed.

"I have to work hard to get roles I want because the roles I want aren't supposedly made for me. I have to work pretty hard at saying I'm going to be able to do that because people have seen Game On and Babes in the Wood and forget about the fact I've had a 10-year career.

"People want to keep you in a box but I won't. Therefore I'm being stubborn until I find what I want."

In last week's first episode of the show, Londoner de Pauli transferred to Liverpool to join the Merseyside CID, a plain-clothes vice squad. But the new detective in town is finding it tough to break into the tight-knit world of both the cops and the criminals.

The chemistry is already evident between de Pauli and Callaghan (Mark Womack).

Sparks really did fly last year when their off-screen romance became public — both were already married.

Janus left her Italian flight-attendant husband Mauro Mantovani and Womack was divorced by his wife and the mother of their 5-year-old son.

Womack and Janus are expecting their first child in January.

Janus says they tried to avoid becoming involved during filming of Liverpool 1.

"We worked very hard on the show. You don't bring romance into that, you keep it professional. We got close during the filming of it and because of that it was a very pleasurable experience, but mainly because I enjoyed working with him as an actor. He's a really good actor. The personal stuff came later."

Janus says a third series of the show was not commissioned but she is happy to leave it at 12 "good pieces of work" rather than keep churning out another British police series.

"We were never about that with Liverpool 1. It was very immoral. It was very dark and dealt with issues we don't usually deal with over here — paedophilia, child prostitution and stuff like that. It dealt with it in a very dark, macabre way and a very real way."

Eighteen months on, Janus is taking the opportunity to spend time working on her house for the first time in three years.

She and Womack often return to Liverpool, where he was raised, and the cast see each other regularly.

"I'd love to be able to say so-and-so was a git, because I'm not that loyal and I would slag somebody off. But they were all boringly lovely."

Janus says she does not have any acting work planned and is focusing on writing shows based on her own ideas.

"You don't tend to get a lot of good roles as a younger woman. You're always playing the femme fatale or the girl next door — they're all boring.

"I've been trying to develop things with people and writing so it's been a preparation period for me.

If no one else is making it then why the hell shouldn't I?"

TV: Liverpool's a bad move, Sam